CRIMES THAT SHOCKED SCOTLAND
Two twisted killers and a three-hour spree of violence and murder that shook the nation
McCulloch sliced off Ian’s ears and put them in his pocket
NANETTE HANSON had everything to live for. A new husband, a new job, a new home and her first baby on the way.
She was just 26 and had only been in Scotland for a few months when evil came to visit.
Looking smart in his Gordon Highlanders uniform as he walked along a Dundee street on November 1, 1967, 19-year-old Robert Mone seemed in an especially good mood.
He marched into St John’s RC School carrying a long, thin package and strode into Nanette’s needlework class. Tearing the paper off his package, Mone revealed he was carrying a shotgun.
For the next few hours, he terrorised the class while strong-willed Nanette comforted her group of 14-year-old girls.
Mone shot through the windows and blasted any cops who came near.
He agreed to speak to 18-year-old nurse Marion Young, who he’d met once before and said “understood” him.
Brave Marion even agreed to go into the classroom and persuaded him to let the children go.
He shot Nanette at point-blank range and was sitting smiling when police burst into the room and led him away.
Nanette was robbed of her life by Mone, who had been hellbent on revenge against the Marist Brothers who ran the school and who had expelled him years before.
At his trial, he was declared severely schizophrenic. There was only one place he could be sent to – the State Hospital at Carstairs – nicknamed “Colditz”.
Thomas McCulloch was enjoying a drink and a sandwich at the Erskine Bridge Hotel, Renfrewshire, in 1970 when he became angry he hadn’t been given enough butter for his bread
BY JANE HAMILTON Crime Reporter roll. He shot the chef in the face and the manageress in the shoulder.
His victims lived but McCulloch was declared murderous and insane and was sent to the State Hospital.
Rumoured to be lovers, Mone and McCulloch plotted and planned their escape for more than six months.
McCulloch was the brains behind the operation. For a long time he was looked upon as a near perfect patient.
He showed no violent tendencies, he worked hard in the paint shop and staff liked him.
It was all a massive con – McCulloch was playing the long game while he connived with Mone to get out of the hospital. The pair had managed to stash axes, knives, fake IDs, uniforms, nurses hats and garrottes and, on November 30, 1976, they decided it was time to go.
They pounced first on nursing officer Neil MacLellan and patient Ian Simpson after he tried to stop them hurting a nurse. Paint stripper was thrown in their faces in the hope it would disable them and Neil and Ian fought for their lives even as they were being hacked to death.
McCulloch repeatedly attacked Neil long after his victim was immobilised while Ian was speared with a pitchfork by Mone. Desperate for a trophy, McCulloch sliced off Ian’s ears and put them in his pocket.
The duo had spent months making a rope ladder and within minutes they had scaled the razor-wire high wall that surrounded the hospital. Once free, Mone lay down on the road pretending to be hurt so they could flag down the first car that passed. They planned to kill the driver and take the car.
As the driver got out to help, a passing police car stopped and pulled in. As soon as they stepped from their vehicle, PC John Gillies and PC George Taylor were attacked with axes and cleavers.
Mone and McCulloch sped off in the police car while PC Taylor lay dead and PC Gillies was left in a critical condition.
It was a typical wintery icy night in Lanarkshire and McCulloch, who hadn’t driven for years, crashed the car.
A van slowed down to help with the accident and McCulloch decided he would pretend to be a police officer transporting a prisoner.
The van occupants got out to help but one was hit on the head and the other stabbed several times and thrown into the back of their own van.
Unknown to Mone and McCulloch, the staff in Carstairs still didn’t know at this point that they had escaped and two men lay dead inside the hospital.
Thinking he saw a police roadblock ahead, McCulloch drove into a muddy field near Biggar but it got bogged down so they abandoned the vehicle and made their way to a farmhouse where they terrorised the family inside and stole their car.
At last, the alarm was raised and police officers in both Scotland and England were on high alert.
After three hours of bloody carnage, Mone and McCulloch were eventually captured when a police car rammed theirs on the A74 north of Carlisle.
The two men were ordered to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives – but this order wouldn’t last. In May 2013, 65-year-old Thomas McCulloch was freed from prison having secured his